On a related note, I enjoyed “What I Learned from Watching ‘Insurgent’ with My Mom” by Maddie Crum for an inter-generational look at YA apocalyptic stories and their broader appeal. I haven’t seen Insurgent yet, but hope to get there this week. It’ll be very interesting to see what they do with the third novel, considering what happens to Tris, the protagonist, in the end.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins connecting the reader with the protagonist

Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.

What happens is dramatized in an immediate scene with action and description plus, if it works, dialogue.

What happens moves the story forward.

What happens has consequences for the protagonist.

The protagonist desires something.

The protagonist does something.

There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.

It happens in the NOW of the story.

Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.

Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.

What happens raises a story question—what happens next? or why did that happen?

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Isaiah sends the prologue and first chapter for A Shadow Among Light.

Prologue

Spots of light danced across Justin’s vision as he lay on the hard ground in the darkness, momentarily stunned. A lightarrow had crashed down just beside him, sending off a massive shockwave that set off a pile of explosives nearby. Distantly, he heard Mara, his partner, shouting.

“Justin! Justin, come on! We have to keep moving!” A triplet of Maras leaned over Justin, helping him to his feet.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Justin exclaimed, brushing off his tight tunic and trying to ignore the ringing in his ears. “We’d better find some cover and come up with a strategy to stop this whole thing before it’s too late.”

“If we can,” Mara muttered doubtfully, her blonde hair rippling as she shook her head slightly. “The enemy has never been big on being stopped.”

“True, true,” Justin replied. “But this whole fiasco will have to end sometime.”

“If only they had a leader…” Mara muttered.

“But they don’t,” Justin retorted. They had been over that before. “If they did, we would have won by now.”

“But they have to have a head of some sort! They can’t be following the orders of no one!”

Kavin spun and drew a lightbow, feeling the familiar vibration as the bow sent a charge into the arrow. The wiry fibers of the bowstring slid smoothly off of his gloved fingers as he released. Streaming wisps of white light, the arrow flew, screaming through the air. It smashed into a robotic sentry, and the bot vanished in a flash of burning plasma. Dropping to the ground and sliding, Kavin barreled into another sentry, stabbing it with a knife that pulsed with white light and destroyed the sentry as it fell. Springing up, he spun and cast a small grenade into an approaching Manta. The creature was vaporized in an instant.

“Getting better,” a deep, refined voice said.

Kavin held back ten thousand burning retorts that leaped to the tip of his tongue, turning with a blank face to look at his supervisor.

“Hait,” he said, slapping his fist to his chest in a salute. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me until you hear me say that I’m impressed, or that you’ve done well, or that you are the best you can be,” snorted Hait. He began to walk toward Kavin, his black uniform standing in stark contrast against the glistening white floor of the training room. The man had an obsession with darkness; he wore black, his eyes were black, his short hair and goatee were black. Even his weapons – when he was bold enough to even fight – were black.

You know me, the first determinant of a page turn is the raising of a compelling story question, followed immediately by a well-written narrative that moves forward. The prologue works at creating a tense situation and raising story questions with some dramatic action, but fell short on a couple of counts for me. The scene isn’t clear, and that may be because it isn’t in the writer’s mind. There is an explosion that sends the protagonist to the ground and sets off nearby explosives—yet, it turns out, they’re in a room and go into a hallway. “Ground” generally means dirt outdoors. There’s some overwriting that doesn’t bode well, too. At the end of the page, rather than moving on with the action, the characters get into a discussion of the “As you know, Bob . . .” kind. This in the middle of life-threatening action. It slows the narrative and detours the path of the story.

The chapter starts with interesting action and world features, but then quickly devolves into a non-threatening training situation where, one assumes, the character won’t be harmed. So there is no jeopardy and no compelling story question raised. There are signs of a good story here, but the narrative needs to focus more on a couple of things—setting the scenes in a quick, accurate way and action or dialogue that makes us wonder what will happen next. Some notes on the text:

Prologue

Spots of light danced across Justin’s vision as he lay on the hard ground in the darkness, momentarily stunned. A lightarrow had crashed down just beside him, sending off a massive shockwave that set off a pile of explosives nearby. Distantly, he heard Mara, his partner, shouting. Good opening paragraph, though where this is isn’t clear. It reads as if outside, but later in the chapter they’re inside.

“Justin! Justin, come on! We have to keep moving!” A triplet of Maras leaned over Justin, helping him to his feet.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Justin brushedexclaimed, brushing off his tight tunic and triedtrying to ignore the ringing in his ears. “We’d better find some cover and come up with a strategy to stop this whole thing before it’s too late.”

“If we can,” Mara muttered doubtfully, her blonde hair rippling as she shook her head slightly. “The enemy has never been big on being stopped.” No need for weak adverb to describe the dialogue, what she says expresses doubt just fine, the reader doesn’t need this. The rest about her blonde hair rippling and head-shaking that’s “slightly” is a bit overwritten and not a smooth effort to include description. What makes it overwriting is that none of it affects the story, it just takes up space.

“True, true,” Justin replied. “But this whole fiasco will have to end sometime.”

“If only they had a leader…” Mara muttered. Here she is muttering again. Avoid the close echo of a word used before.

“But they don’t,” Justin retorted. They had been over that before. “If they did, we would have won by now.” Dialogue tag issues are showing up. Instead of “said,” so far we have exclaimed, muttered, replied, muttered again, and retorted. With the exception of the first muttered, they can all be “said” or written out. This is also where the narrative diverges from what’s happening into exposition trying to set things up. Didn’t work for me.

“But they have to have a head of some sort! They can’t be following the orders of no one!”

Chapter One

Kavin spun and drew a lightbow, feeling the familiar vibration as the bow sent a charge into the arrow. The wiry fibers of the bowstring slid smoothly off of his gloved fingers as he released. Streaming wisps of white light, the arrow flew, screaming through the air. It smashed into a robotic sentry, and the bot vanished in a flash of burning plasma. Dropping to the ground and sliding, Kavin barreled into another sentry, stabbing it with a knife that pulsed with white light and destroyed the sentry as it fell. Springing up, he spun and cast a smallgrenade into an approaching Manta. The creature was vaporized in an instant. This is just fine as an action opening nice writing. However, we don’t know where we are. Perhaps that should follow.

“Getting better,” a deep, refined voice said.

Kavin held back ten thousand burning retorts that leaped to the tip of his tongue, turning with a blank face to look at his supervisor. Here’s where the steam starts to leak out of this opening page. Similar to opening with a dream sequence, we’ve been subjected to a little bait-and-switch: there’s really no danger at all. As we soon learn, it’s training.

“Hait,” he said, slapping his fist to his chest in a salute. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me until you hear me say that I’m impressed, or that you’ve done well, or that you are the best you can be,” snorted Hait. He began to walk toward Kavin, his black uniform standing in stark contrast against the glistening white floor of the training room. The man had an obsession with darkness; he wore black, his eyes were black, his short hair and goatee were black. Even his weapons – when he was bold enough to even fight – were black.

Too obsessed with black, Kavin thought. This opinion of his supervisor’s appearance falls far short of contributing to a strong story question. The tension falls right out of the narrative for me here.

Following is a critique that appeared in recent comments on a FtQ
submission. It illustrates several of the things NOT to do when criticizing writing,
whether here or anywhere.

“I hate stories with lots of description, and this one is no exception. The
description itself isn’t that great, either.

“I also don't like Magical/Paranormal stories, also. They're WAY too popular
nowadays.”

Let’s start with “I hate.” That phrase and its more common expression, “I
don’t like,” makes it personal. It’s not about the narrative any more, it’s
personal, and that’s not in any way helpful to the writer. He or she can’t do
anything about what you hate or don’t like.

Here, the critic hates lots of description. All a writer can take away from
this is to cut down on description, which is also not terribly helpful. The
critic goes on to make it personal again with “The description isn’t that
great, either.” No help for the writer there.

If you want to contribute to a writer with a comment or critique, think of
how you would like to receive it, what it would be helpful for you to know. In
this case, to address what this critic said:

Instead of “I hate lots of description,” how about “The amount of
description really slowed the pace for me and I lost interest.”

As for “The description isn’t that great,” there’s no guidance or help
whatsoever in this negative shot. Give examples of the description that don’t
work for you, or suggest other ways to do it, but don’t just stop by, piss on
someone’s writing, and blithely move on.

Finally, your reading preferences have no place on FtQ or, for that matter,
in a writing critique. This blog is about the craft of creating a compelling
fiction narrative. To simply reject writing because the genre isn’t one you
like is totally useless to the writer, as it is to simply accept it because it’s
one you enjoy.

Good criticism is comes from clear-minded, thoughtful analysis of the
narrative and a discussion of what does or doesn’t work to put a story into a
reader’s mind. Genre really shouldn’t matter when you’re analyzing how it works—so
please leave that part out.

The comments offered by FtQ readers are almost always helpful, and I truly
appreciate their contributions. It speaks of the communal aspect of a
very lonely art. So keep the crits coming, and keep them considerate and focused
on craft.